How safe are Earthquake Friendly Homes?

A document that has experiments that test some of the novel ideas
engineers have come up with to reduce fatalities during earthquakes
caused by falling infrastructure.

Ayabonga Vika
Lindokuhle Hlati

Earthquakes are tremors that occur beneath the earths surface due to the
motion of tectonic plates. These tremors result in the collapsing of
infrastructure and according to research earthquake victims die because
of building bricks falling onto them more than the actual tremor. Engineers
and architecture specialists have been finding various ways of building
earthquake friendly homes. This document consists of two experiments
that will be testing two novel ideas on how to build earthquake friendly
homes.

Base isolation:
Materials:

1x flat, smooth surface like a table top

2x boxes that will resemble buildings
3x small plastic cups that will serve as shock
absorbers.
Prestik
Marker

Method:
1. Label the two boxes using the marker with the names, Box A and Box B
2. Using the Prestik you will stick the 3 small plastic cups onto the Base of
House A.
3. Now place the two houses next to each other on a smooth surface such
as a table top.
4. You will know begin shaking the table and observe which house takes
longer to fall.
Explanation:
From the experiment you should notice that House A falls later compared
to House B and this is because of the small plastic cups. The plastic cups
are acting as shock absorbers. The movement that is made from the table
is absorbed by the cups. In contrast, House B is directly on the surface of
the earth. The foundation of the house acts as the shock absorber hence
the house fell because the energy from the table was transferred to the
bottom of the box.
Like in earthquakes base isolators act as shock absorbers and they
prevent the buildings or infrastructure from collapsing onto victims. As
seen with House B the foundation of the house acts as the absorber and in
earthquakes buildings crack in half. This is because the energy from the
earth is being transferred directly onto the building itself.

Inflatable homes:

Background information:
An engineering company in Japan, Air Danshin has conjectured to create a
floating house to decrease the drastic effects of earthquake tremors on
infrastructure. The floating system works on shock absorbers that sense
tremors and immediately inflate and the house ascends 3 cm above the
ground.
Materials:

Hair dryer
Ping pong ball
Electricity source

Method:
1. Connect your hair dryer to the electricity outlet.
2. As soon as you switch on your dryer you should
let the ping pong ball hover above the dryer.
Explanation:
The hair dryer in this experiment acts as the earthquake tremor and the
ping pong ball is the house that levitates. As soon as the earthquake
tremor system sense a tremor the house levitates 3cm above the ground
and the house is not exactly on the ground. Therefore there is no piece of
the building that acts as a shock absorber which may cause collapsing.
Some argue that the levitating house is not efficient because it may bump
into other house or even go through power lines whilst in the air.